Document Type

Graduate Syllabus

Date

Spring 2023

School

Diplomacy

Course Number

DIPL 6002

Course Description

International Organizations (be they lGOs or NGOs) are often poorly understood, but they serve very real and important functions in our world. International relations would be profoundly different if they did not exist. Our goal in this class is three-fold. First, we will trace the evolution of studies that address why international organizations are created. Second, we will discuss the functions that international organizations serve and the factors that shape their effectiveness. Third, we will apply this theoretical knowledge to empirical research on international organizations in the fields of political economy, security, the environment, and human rights.

It is worth stressing that this is a graduate level course on International Organizations. We will not be reviewing the design of individual IOs per se. Our concern is more to better understand the theoretical and empirical scholarship on international organizations. This work gives us a toolkit to talk across these organizations to help us understand why IOs are created, why they look the way they do, and how we better understand (both theoretically and empirically) the influence that they have.

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